


No Smoke without a Fire

by bluesyturtle



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Declarations Of Love, Electrocution, M/M, Mental Instability, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Stabbing, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 01:26:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8601757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesyturtle/pseuds/bluesyturtle
Summary: This is based on the trailer for S3E10: "Time Bomb"Ed kidnaps Butch and Tabitha for the purpose of acquiring some information from them. Barbara crashes the party with a hostage of her own, and things get messy.





	1. No Fire without a Spark

Ed has a fondness for electricity that runs parallel to his fondness for wordplay. As far as interrogative tactics go, the two are asymptotic—which is to say, mathematically, intrinsically bound. The spoken word bears its power in the graces of subtle and brass manipulation, changing cadences of intonation, and the right modulation of intensity for these modes at appropriate intervals. Electricity, while atomically brutal in a way that words simply cannot be, bears the same elements as speech when refined down to its most extraneous nuance.

In other words, the threat of a few dozen milliamps, when administered correctly, earns roughly the same effect as a well-tailored talking-to if one knows what one is doing, and Ed, oh, he knows.

There’s good fun to be had in pushing current after current through Butch’s body, but it is ultimately punishment. If Ed enjoys meting out justice to Isabella’s murderer, well, render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

But torture, though. It’s thrilling stuff, Ed’s gotta say.

Inasmuch as a dim-witted ape can (and Ed will own that the comparison is uncharitable to apes), Butch exhibits significantly less enthusiasm about the whole ordeal. It’s to be expected. Detective Gordon hadn’t enjoyed this strain of Ed’s communication skills either. However, in Gordon’s case, they _had_ arrived at a natural end in their conversation when Ed shocked him. Butch, on the other hand; Ed would like to hear him say a few choice words before he kills him.

Mainly:

“One more time, Butch. Isabella. Why did you kill her?”

“You should really check his heart rate if you’re going to keep electrocuting him,” Tabitha snipes to Butch’s left. She’s the perfect picture of bland disapproval crossed with impatience.

Ed supposes it’s an act put on to buy Butch precious, much-needed recovery time. He flicks his gaze to her without moving, bares his teeth, and digs his thumb down into the makeshift trigger he’s built into the circuitboard. Tabitha doesn’t flinch, no. Her tell flashes in her eyes, all fiery wrath directed right at him, at this situation. This is the second time now that Ed’s caught her in the snare of a hostage scenario. He’s not too arrogant to admit to himself that there probably won’t be a third, albeit this admission comes from a place of pragmatism rather than humility.

There will be no third time because one of them will be dead before she allows it to happen. Ed suspects she’ll kill him if given the ripe opportunity to do so. Someone else will probably get her, though, if it comes to that. He has no intention of killing her today, and barring this chance, there will be no better time for it. His odds of besting her won’t ever again be what they are today.

For a moment, as he’s cutting off the amperage to Butch’s chair, he entertains the idea of Oswald dispatching the possible threat of a vengeful Tabitha come to collect Ed’s head. It’s not an unlikely turn of events, but he’s seen how Oswald looks at Ms. Kean and Ed isn’t completely immune to the charm that is their kindred experience at Arkham. All told, Tabitha throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the equation. Ed’s toying with something volatile here and he doesn’t pretend not to see it or the possible repercussions.

He may very well start a war today. But if Troy burned for one woman, then Gotham is not above succumbing to the same folly. A spark can start a fire; a man can wage a war. No one will blame Isabella for the bloodshed the way history blames Helen.

“One more time, you _slimy_ little _worm_ , I _didn’t_ kill your girlfriend!”

“Raise your words, not your voice, Butch. Didn’t anyone ever tell you thunder doesn’t make the flowers grow?” Ed tosses the bulky control panel over his shoulder where it hits the ground with a crash. A grin overtakes his face and he begins rooting around in his messy arsenal for the gasoline. “Speaking of…what always falls but never gets hurt?”

Ed brandishes the gas can so that Butch will see it before it’s poured out all over him.

“Nygma, what—stop! Ed! _Ed!_ ”

Off the top of his head, Ed doesn’t know where he left the matches, but Butch can scream a little while longer before he discloses that bit of information. In the meantime, it’s satisfying enough to dump the contents of the gas can all over his shouting quarry. Butch’s voice goes a little pitchy with terror. It’s quaint.

When he does find the matches, Ed’s going to have to be extra careful not to strike any too close to Tabitha. Some of the gasoline spattered on her while Ed was dousing Butch, meaning that if he’s careless, he could set them both on fire. That would be bad.

Ed pats down his sides and then his breast pocket, searching openly now for the matches. No such luck. He makes an overly serious face at Butch and points gravely with one finger.

“In the spirit of fairness,” he begins solemnly, only for his expression to ripple beneath a stifled laugh. It devolves into a slow, uneven smile. “You’ve got until I find the matches to confess. If I like what you have to say, then, maybe I won’t set you on fire?”

He weighs his hands, giggling at Butch’s breathless, wide-eyed rage. Tabitha looks on silently, so quietly furious that Ed actually catches a bit of a chill down his spine. He turns to her, ready with a word but unprepared for the spit in his face. His glasses catch part of it, the rest of it settling in high on his cheek. Tabitha smiles sweetly at him, a speck of saliva clinging to her bottom lip.

“You did ask,” she says. “What always falls but never gets hurt?”

And whatever conflicting opinions he may have of her, _that_ is _funny_. Ed gives up the caliber of laughter that it deserves, probably going slightly overboard with it, if Butch’s exaggerated grimace is any indication. He straightens out and dabs at his face with the pocket square that matched his tie before he took it off. His glasses come off and then he’s wiping them clean, too.

“Oh, you! You’re fun! And here I was going to let you go unharmed. I mean,” Ed interrupts himself. “ _Physically_ unharmed. Making you watch your trained monkey burn was always going to be part of the itinerary. But, well, it might be worth it to take something from you, after all. Your hand? That would be poetic, right? In a macabre, Gothic romance novel kind of way. Hmm, we’ll see. Now, to find those pesky matches…”

Ed sets to hunting around for them. He’s sure he brought along a box.

“What even makes you think he did it?” Tabitha snarls, half in frustration that her restraints won’t give and half in something else Ed can’t decipher. “Why would he? Way I see it, it was just a matter of time before you killed her yourself like you did the other one.”

“ _Tabitha,_ ” Butch hisses.

“It’s a fair question,” she croons, so blatantly unafraid of him that Ed can’t help but remember Isabella in Ms. Kringle’s clothes. 

“Tabitha…”

“He framed a cop because he knew how to manipulate evidence—because he’s so much _smarter_ than everyone else, right? You’re telling me that he suddenly doesn’t care about evidence?” She looks at Ed again, sneering and viciously pleased with herself in a manner that’s nearly as contagious as laughter. “You have no proof. You want it to be Butch, but you have no proof. Isn’t that right, riddle man?”

“Tabitha, stop.”

Ed hums, pretending to consider it and faltering when he begins to do so in truth. Tabitha laughs. Butch clenches his jaw.

Interesting.

“While this is a stimulating conversation, I get the very distinct feeling that you—” he points at Butch with his hands held together in the shape of a gun. “—aren’t going to be very forthcoming regardless of where it goes, so lighting you up like a relatively small, less-combustible wicker man won’t impede or diminish my plans for you.”

Tabitha glares at Ed and then at Butch. Ed returns to his task of locating the matches. He finds a lighter instead.

“Not quite as cinematic as a match, I’m afraid.” Ed tosses it up in the air and snatches it in his hand mid-fall. “But it’ll do for you, Butch, don’t you think?”

He starts tinkering with the striker wheel to ignite it. Butch jolts in his seat like he can already feel the flames. Ed smirks at him and tries the wheel in earnest. Go figure that it doesn’t light. He frowns at the disappointing piece of plastic and throws it at the wall, muttering under his breath about the matches.

It’s as he’s nearly upended the table looking for the box that the door to the fire exit bursts open. Ms. Kean storms in as she was always wont to do, and Ed grabs up the first weapon his hand touches—a short knife with a hook at the end of its blade. She has a gun in one hand and Oswald’s arm in the other. She’s not pointing the gun at him, but Ed can’t gauge how hard she’s gripping his elbow and there’s no way Oswald can comfortably match her pace without being partially dragged.

“Ed!” Oswald calls out, spotting Ed immediately and never once looking away, even when he stumbles at Ms. Kean’s side. “Ed, what are you doing?”

Ed’s fingers tighten around the handle of the knife. He doesn’t particularly know why since it’s not like he’s going to stab either Butch or Tabitha. He’d grown attached to the idea of setting Butch on fire, and even if she is bound to a chair, Ed knows better than to put a knife within Tabitha’s reach. 

It should be apparent what he’s doing, so he ignores Oswald’s question to ask one of his own.

“Oswald, are you all right?”

“Ed—”

He bangs his bad leg on one of the many huge inactive generators lying about on the warehouse floor. Ed makes a harassed sound in the back of his throat at the pale look of agony that ghosts over Oswald’s face. Ms. Kean pushes him on in spite of it.

“Just a ways further, Ozzie, sweetie.”

They stop a few feet off from the gasoline aura ringing Butch’s chair. Ms. Kean removes her hand from Oswald’s elbow and drapes her arm along his back so that the hand not holding a gun rests on his shoulder. Oswald is sweating, visibly shaken at the pain in his leg. Ed looks at him for a long time before turning his attention to her.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Kean?”

“You can give me my friends back,” she answers, glib and bold like a soprano melody to synchronize with Tabitha’s tenor harmony. “And I won’t put a bullet in yours.”

Oswald gives a shuddering sigh beside her, and Ms. Kean shrugs.

“I know, doll face. You _are_ my friend. Which is why I sure hope Mr. Nygma plays nice.”

She bats her eyes at Ed from across their short distance, still dangling the gun at her side. All it would take for her to aim it at Oswald is a reflex. All it would take for her to shoot him is a twitch.

“How about a trade?” Ed suggests.

“What, Tabs for Ozzie? Hmm, let me think. What do you say, babe?”

“I’m not leaving without Butch.”

“That’s what I figured. Ah, well, there’s your answer, _Ed_. Say, is that gasoline I smell? Didn’t save any for us? Maybe _we_ wanted to watch _you_ burn.”

There’s a delighted, wicked gleam in her eyes that Ed wants to be riled by, but he only finds it reassuring. Oh, she’s alarming, make no mistake, but it’s not that she’s crazy. She intimidates him because he trusts her to follow the most wild instincts of her mind. She calms him because he’s seen flashes of that person in himself and in Oswald. It’s such a vivid, unyielding manifestation of wakefulness that only those who have felt it could look it in the face and know.

Ed holds her mockingly stern gaze as she stares him down. She drops her chin, blue eyes sparkling.

“Looks like what we have here is a good old-fashioned Mexican standoff.” Ms. Kean touches her nose to Oswald’s cheek. She purrs, “How do you like your chances, Os?”

“Barbara,” Oswald stammers. “Surely we can talk about this.”

She swings her arm up over her head and shoots a hole in the ceiling. Looking from Oswald to Ed, all without ever blinking once, she points the gun underneath Oswald’s chin. 

“I’m done talking. Let them go, or let _Oswald_ go. Simple math, Ed. I’m gonna count to three.”

Everybody starts talking at once.

“Barbara.”

“Now wait—”

“ _One…_ ”

“Just hold on.”

“Let him go.”

“Ms. Kean, please…”

“ _Two._ ”

“Barbara, just—”

“I’m sorry, Oswald,” she coos, clicking her tongue.

“ _Wait, wait! Wait!_ Ed, wait. Ed…” Oswald flails, offering resistance for probably the first time since Ms. Kean grabbed him given her startled reaction. He only goes so far as to break out of her hold, probably knowing that to run would just result in her shooting him. “Ed, let them go. Let them…” He gasps, hoarse with yelling and with fear—so much fear that Ed can see it in the gaunt set of his face and in the hunted look of his eyes. Crying almost, Oswald whispers, “Ed, let them go.”

“But Oswald…” Ed’s voice comes out so small. “They— _Butch_ —you know what he _did_.”

Oswald exhales a few times deeply through his nose, shoulders heaving, like he’s on a precipice and looking down over a panic attack. He shakes his head, eyes going glassy, and he says, “Ed… _Ed_ , no, he didn’t.”

Ed stops. Stops breathing, stops thinking, stops taking in the details of his surroundings. The harsh smell of gasoline hits his nose first when his senses come back online. He looks accusingly at Butch only to see him looking at Oswald, something painfully, ridiculously like despondency in his expression. Ed swallows through a wave of nausea and sways. His voice gets smaller.

“How do you know?”

“Ed…” Oswald’s mouth works around silence.

Ed slams his hand on the metal table he’s been working from. “ _How_ do you _know_ , Oswald?”

Flinching but holding his ground, Oswald keeps shaking his head. Ed chokes back on the scream begging to rush through his lungs and stalks toward him, blind to everything and everyone else, blind to himself, almost.

“ _How do you know?_ Oswald, what did you do?”

Panicked, trembling, Oswald tilts his head back to look all the way up at Ed. Barely speaking the words at all, he says, “You told me once we were better off unencumbered.”

Ed—

He…

There’s a few drops of red on Oswald’s chin. A stringy red trail of it spills over from his parted lips, stained in the red. He’s gasping, crying. Smiling.

“Oswald…?”

“You were wrong, Ed.”

“I…”

“Call 9-1-1,” he hears Butch say somewhere behind him.

“What did I…but…”

He looks down at the knife in his hand. It’s plunged deep into Oswald’s belly, and oh, no, that’s all wrong. That’s wrong, it’s…

“Ed,” Oswald murmurs, woozy already. 

“Oh, dear, oh…ohh, gosh. Okay, Oswald, just…oh, oh, no. Oh, no, oh, no.”

“Please, help, somebody tried to assassinate the mayor,” Ms. Kean drones, dutifully giving the address of their current whereabouts when prompted. “But you better hurry, the little guy’s gonna bleed out any minute now.”

“Are we done? Can we go?”

“Yes, Tabitha, we can go. Tabitha—” There’s the sound of a scuffle, but Ed can’t risk jostling Oswald or the knife to turn and look. “You can kill him later, all right? Preferably when he’s not holding our esteemed mayor’s life in his hands? Sorry ‘bout that, boss. Just hang tight till the cops get here.”

Ed must have backed Oswald up against this ramshackle wall of crates before he stabbed him. Most of Oswald’s weight is sagged into them. Ed starts to cautiously loosen his grip from the knife’s handle, wincing at the hot pulse of blood that gushes out over his hand.

“Uhhh, I can’t—I can’t move it. There’s a hook at the end of it, and I might…not to mention it’s generally a bad idea to unplug a wound before help arrives, so it’s—you know, we…we’re in good shape like this, I think.”

Oswald closes his eyes, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. “I need to sit. My leg…”

“Oh-kay, I’ll, uh, I’ll just hold you then and you can slide down. Here, just—oh! Wait—all right, never mind. I have you. Okay, a little more, and…”

A weak groan escapes them both when Oswald thumps down onto the floor. Ed steadies Oswald with his hands on his shoulders, hesitating a moment before he takes them away.

“Ah—sorry, I…you probably don’t want me touching you.”

Oswald opens his eyes. They look so blue against his pallid complexion. Not for the first time, it strikes Ed how small Oswald is, especially now all huddled in on himself, shivering and in pain. Despite his obvious discomfort, Oswald smiles. So like him to look this bright when life has brought him down so low.

“You haven’t asked me what you were wrong about.”

Ed sighs, torn between regret and anger that feels almost inconsequential, now. He’s the reason for the blood on Oswald’s face, on their clothes, on Ed’s hands. He could have done this to Butch and been satisfied, but Oswald is…Oswald saved him, came back to him time and again.

Oswald killed Isabella. Ed _should_ want to hurt him for that, but now that he has, all he feels is shame uncurling in his belly.

“What…” His voices dies midway. He clears his throat to start over. “What was I wrong about?”

“About love. Feeling it doesn’t make us weak. It makes us…” Oswald chuckles brokenly, a tear slipping out as he looks down. Rueful, he says, “It makes us foolish.”

Ed sits back on his heels, pondering and coming to a daunting conclusion that makes his heart stutter in his chest. He frowns, eyebrows furrowing down as he thinks. He looks up at Oswald, assessing and refiguring and pushing it all down in order to focus on the crisis when Oswald sucks in a short, fast breath as a preamble to the confession Ed didn’t know he was waiting for.

“I love you.”

Blinking, gaping, Ed says, “You, love _me?_ ”

“I know,” Oswald sighs, slumping through the shoulders. “I know, I killed your girlfriend, yes, how could I do that if I loved you,” he says, moaning the last bit as he sits up a bit more.

“No, that’s, uh, that’s not hard to understand,” Ed mutters, self-deprecating for how purely the situation echoes what he did to Officer Dougherty. “I get it, I know why you did it. Granted, Isabella wasn’t abusive to me—well, outside of the one time she slapped me, but…”

“Excuse me?”

Ed shrugs, glossing over the encounter. It started bad, but it didn’t end that way. He doesn’t want Oswald to dwell on it.

“Wait, I’m…I’m sorry, you _love_ me? You love me. Really?”

Sirens kick up some miles out. They draw nearer with every passing second, bringing help closer, and Ed wants them here now. He wants them here _ten minutes ago_ , but he also feels rushed somehow by their imminent arrival; like if they don’t have this conversation now and reach a definitive end, then they never will. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t like that he doesn’t understand. There are too many emotions spinning around inside of him and he can’t make heads or tails of where one thought begins and the other ends.

“Yes, Ed, really,” Oswald mumbles, sinking more heavily into the crates at his back. “Oh, they sent an ambulance, good.”

“Of course they sent an ambulance. Ms. Kean told them you were wounded.”

“Barbara,” Oswald murmurs, chuckling and smiling fondly. “So unpredictable, that one. I do hope we won’t be enemies after this.”

“She won’t fight you anymore than you’ll fight her,” Ed says, partially to soothe Oswald’s worry and partially because he really believes it.

Oswald must, too, because the tension in his jaw eases.

“Tabitha would,” Ed adds, not without remorse.

Nodding, Oswald says, “Tabitha would.”

The sirens caterwaul just a few blocks away, and Ed clenches his hands, steeling himself. 

“I’m born in the eyes, but most listen for me in words.”

Oswald laughs loudly, cutting off at the end with a sharp hiss of pain. Ed reaches out with his hands to—well, to comfort him, he supposes. He ends up staying there, rubbing heat into Oswald’s arms with his palms. Oswald, who has been holding himself so still so as not to move the knife where it’s lodged in his stomach, melts. Ed forgets what he meant to say. He forgets his train of thought altogether.

“You and your riddles, Ed!” It comes out like a sob, but he’s still smiling. “Ed, your riddles.”

He looks Ed in the eye then, and Ed is lost, floating amid a tossing sea with Oswald’s heart in his hands and his own heart somewhere in the crashing waves, trying to drop anchor in a storm.

“Tell it to me then,” Oswald breathes, swooning and glazed about the eyes with pain that must be building and building like fire in his gut.

It burns in Ed, too. He’s burning up and Oswald is smiling at him like Ed could yank the knife out of him and stab him again and it’d all be okay. It’s not logical. It’s not.

“I…I forgot it. I’m sorry.” Ed opens his mouth, closes it. Hums and adds, “In and out of my head.”

Oswald closes his eyes again, peaceful but straining against the pain eating away at him. Says, “It’ll come back to you.”

“Oswald—”

Another door, not the one Ms. Kean came in through, slams open. The officers come in first, guns drawn. Ed raises his hands, noting belatedly how bloody they are, and inches away from Oswald when ordered to do so. Detective Bullock subdues him—completely unnecessary—while Ed scans around for Detective Gordon. He doesn’t see him.

“Hey, Penguin—I mean, Mr. Mayor, sir, you all right?” Bullock calls over while the paramedics fuss over Oswald.

They check his pulse and flash a light in his eyes, going through the motions that Ed should have but hadn’t thought to do. None of his thoughts carry any semblance of order at the moment. He’s not surprised, but he is disappointed.

At the end of his strength, apparently, Oswald’s head lolls back as he’s deposited onto a stretcher. He’s so pale and so small, and the splay of his limbs makes him look so helpless. The paramedics wheel him away, and as they’re lifting him into the ambulance, Ed remembers himself. He jerks into motion, wrenching his arm where Bullock has him in an unyielding hold.

“I need to go with him,” Ed insists, gritting the words out over and over again because it’s all that makes sense in light of everything else that he’s learned today. He needs to go with Oswald. He needs to be with him if something happens. “I need to go. I need to go! Let me go!”

“Hey, hey, easy there, sparky, all right? Hey! I said, _easy!_ ”

Ed barely notices the concrete pressed up beneath his cheek or Bullock’s hands holding him down, cuffing him. He sees and hears the ambulance doors close, and it’s all that matters. Oswald’s there and Ed is here, and it’s wrong. 

He didn’t even say he was sorry. 

_“Are you?”_

Ed closes his eyes. This isn’t happening. It’s _not._

_“Oh, it is. You said it yourself, pal, we were all set to cook Butch like a Christmas goose, and now, you up and changed your mind? You don’t want blood anymore? All because what, because Penguin says he loves you?”_

Ed screws his eyes shut and then snaps them open again, but _he_ doesn’t go anywhere. _He_ stays put, cheek pressed into the ground so he can look Ed in the eye up close. He smiles, and the glint of his teeth is like the cruel edge of a blade.

_“Like the one you stuck your buddy with? Yeah, about that…you don’t think he meant all that stuff he said, do you?”_

“Oswald…”

Ed stops himself short. Bullock hoists him up off the ground and then higher still so that he’s standing, walking. Bullock is arresting him and reading him his rights. It’s bad enough Ed landed himself in Arkham once, but there are people here. Witnesses. If he starts talking to himself moments after Gotham’s mayor has been found half-dead with Ed’s fingerprints on the weapon in question, he’ll be finished.

_“He said he loved you so you’d stop killing him. You think he was telling the truth? You’re pathetic.”_

Bullock tosses him in the back of a squad car and slams the door behind him. Ed fidgets but doesn’t try to run. He’s alone in the car for the time being, so he whispers harshly under his breath.

“He was telling the truth.”

_“Huh, you know, I’m starting to think maybe that’s what you want. Is it?”_

Ed sucks in a deep inhale and turns to lay into _him_ , but stops. He really is alone in the back of the squad car. Bullock and another officer climb into the front seats and drive to the precinct. The other Ed’s phantom voice lingers, haunting him.

_Maybe that’s what you want._

He swallows hard and looks out the window at the city as they pass through it.

_Is it?_


	2. No Spark without Friction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald recovers in the hospital and entertains some surprising visitors.

Oswald hovers between passing out in the ambulance and jerking back to consciousness. First of all, being in the back of an ambulance is loud. It’s _astonishing_ how loud. From the sirens to the fussing of the doctors to the equipment they pass around him and above him and onto him. There’s an oxygen mask strapped over his face. His clothes are being snipped open down the middle, which he can’t even protest for modesty’s sake. These people don’t care about his scars or that he’s too skinny or that his skin never sees the sun.

In a bleary moment of lucidity, he glances down at the knife protruding from his stomach. There’s a faint watery trickle of blood that ekes out whenever the ambulance hits a rough patch of road, but otherwise, the knife seems to be plugging up the wound as Ed said it would. Oswald supposes that’s good. He’s not in much of a position to think about it differently. 

But that does lead him to the awful sinking realization that Ed is not here. Oswald writhes a bit on his back, stretching his neck to try and look behind him. No, Ed is definitely not with him. Oswald’s breathing changes from uneven to decidedly panicked.

“Sir, settle down,” one of the paramedics tells him, fanning her hand at him like he’s a flame she means to put out.

They keep talking above him, but Oswald’s upset now and his mind is racing, not to even speak of his jackrabbit heart. It only takes one of them to hold him down, small and weakened as he is. He groans at the pinch in his arm, relaxing moments later. Falling asleep after that is easier.

A while later without dreams, Oswald wakes in a white room that smells of antiseptic. He spots Gabe standing watch by the door and almost cries out in relief. He thought he would be alone when he woke.

“Gabe.”

“Boss, how you feelin’?”

“Oh, Gabe, like…” Oswald pauses and tries to catalogue the sensations so he can put words to them. There’s heat, but it’s less now than it was before. He can only be grateful it no longer feels like being struck several times in the same spot, tension giving way to numbness giving way to fire. “But never mind that. Ed. Where is he?”

“Last I heard, the cops arrested him. Guess they think he did this to you.” Gabe comes a few steps closer, a wary look in his eyes. “Boss…”

“Don’t.” Oswald looks away and holds up one hand. “That’s not important.”

Gabe drops the matter, though he looks unconvinced. He shakes his head.

“Fine, then I don’t need to know, but there’s more cops outside. They want to know how the mayor ends up stuck like a pig in some kinda torture chamber reekin’ of gasoline. With a guy everybody thinks belongs in Arkham.”

“Stop. Gabe, I’ll deal with them.”

“Well, I hope you got a story lined up, boss. I gotta call the nurse, and they’ll be comin’ in when I do.”

“Do it then.”

Oswald stares at the wall and touches cautious fingers to the thick dressings over his stomach. The blanket he’s under helps to keep the worst of the room’s chill from getting to him, but his arms are bare and covered in goosebumps. Gabe presses the call button on the remote lying on Oswald’s bed, and not a minute later, a doctor walks in flanked by Detective Bullock and, hanging back in the doorway, one dour-looking Jim Gordon.

Perking up almost instantly, Oswald says, “Jim! My dear old friend!”

“All right, Penguin,” Bullock chides him, standing so that he’s blocking Oswald’s visual. “You let the doc here check you out without throwin’ any elbows, and maybe I’ll bring Jimbo in here to say hi, all right? How’s that sound?”

“Throwing elbows? I…” 

_Oh,_ Oswald thinks. _Oh, yes, that’s right._

Before he can correct himself, Bullock beats him to it: “Yeah, apparently, having you as a patient is like trying to get a ten year-old all amped up on sugar to sit still. Who would’ve figured, someone who gets hurt as often as you do,” he adds wryly.

“You aren’t funny, Detective.” 

Bullock starts to reply, but the doctor interrupts.

“Detective Bullock, please, I need the room.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry, doc. You got it.”

Oswald watches Bullock backtrack out of the room and catches sight of Jim for just a moment before the door to the hallway closes. He looks agitated, and while Oswald knows better than to think it could be because of him, he can’t help but be a little satisfied. Bullock knew to bring Jim here, or Jim knew to come anyway. Whether he wants to be here or not, his presence is more telling than any scathing rejection he’ll no doubt spew at Oswald later.

It’s all right. Oswald will make out just fine. He always has done. He’ll be a little worse for wear, but he’ll survive. It’s the one thing no one has ever been able to take from him.

“Mayor Cobblepot, I’m Dr. Janine Abrams. I’ll be overseeing your treatment today. Looks like we pulled an impaled object from your abdomen earlier this afternoon,” she says, casual as can be like they’re talking about the weather. “You lost a little over a liter of blood. Paramedics had to sedate you en route to the hospital. How do you feel?”

Oswald watches her flip through the chart at the end of his bed and then check the electronic readings on all the monitors at his bedside. He shrugs against the papery sheets, squirming in his flimsy gown.

“I’m in significantly less pain now than I was. Thank you, Dr. Abrams.”

“Detectives Bullock and Gordon seem to think you know who your attacker was. Are you going to tell them?”

Careful not to react too obviously—though he’s been told by a few people that this isn’t his strong suit—he simply looks away. Dr. Abrams hums at his side and scribbles various lines in his chart before replacing the clipboard at the end of his bed.

“Well, some tranquilizers have been known to cause memory loss,” she says, a bit too charitably for Oswald to immediately accept it.

“Oh, really?” A moment later, he closes his eyes. “I mean, yes, I feel—that’s what I feel, exactly, yes.”

“You’ll be all right, Mr. Mayor. I will need to advise that you stay here at least until the end of the week. Depending on how nicely you heal up, we may have you out of here in three days or so.”

“Three—oh,” Oswald sighs, not liking the sound of that. “Dr. Abrams, I assure you, that really won’t be necessary.”

“This is not a negotiation, Oswald. May I call you Oswald?”

Flapping his mouth a bit, he nods.

“Good. Now, Oswald, you have stitches holding your belly together, you lost about thirty percent of the blood in your body, and you don’t know if the police have your attacker in custody.”

“Okay, certainly, that is…that is troubling,” Oswald admits, stammering. “There was that much blood? Wait, is that a lot? Ah, no, forget I asked. Fine. Fine, I concede the point. I am unwell, and you are the physician who’s going to make me well. Fine.”

“I’m going to bring the detectives back in.”

“It’s your house,” he mutters. “By all means.”

Dr. Abrams flashes an amused smile at him and heads to the door. Curious case, that one. He gets the feeling she knows something about him, but then, everybody does. It’s not as if anyone hadn’t heard about his criminal past and often-present during his campaign, or now. Maybe she just has a God complex about Oswald being under her thumb here and now, despite his status as Mayor Cobblepot or as the Penguin. Or maybe it’s something else, for all he knows. They’ll be stuck here together for the next few days, so he’s sure he’ll find out.

When they’re allowed back in, Detective Bullock comes right up to Oswald’s bedside to peer down at him while Jim remains at the edge of the room. Gabe must be out in the hall watching the door, or perhaps he’s gone to take a break from waiting now that Oswald has Gotham’s Finest watching over him.

“So, Penguin—Mayor Cobblepot, I mean, sorry.” Bullock flashes a crooked smile. “Old habits. So Mr. Mayor, go ahead and make our jobs easy on us, would you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean, Detective.”

“Nygma,” Bullock says, frowning. He gestures at Oswald’s stomach, bulky with bandages beneath the thin white blanket. “He did this to you.”

“ _Ed?_ ” Oswald actually blanches slightly, hoping Ed is okay and that he hasn’t confessed. “What would he possibly have to gain by hurting me?”

“Oh, he raises a good point, Jim.” Bullock turns to look over his shoulder, all lighthearted sarcasm to Jim’s stiff stoicism. “You believe him?”

“No. Wouldn’t be the first time he lied to my face to protect someone he cared about.”

“You think he cares about Nygma? Hoo, buddy, that’s a short stick if ever I heard one.” Laughing, Bullock swivels around to face Oswald. “But I guess you did get stabbed earlier, so you know. Not like I gotta tell you, right?”

“I am quite sure that you are out of line, Detective Bullock. Frankly, I don’t know who did this to me. My doctor will confirm that I was sedated on the ride here and consequently, have no memory of the event.” Oswald continues through Bullock’s derisive snort. “I acted, as you so eloquently phrased it, like a _ten year-old all amped up on sugar_. If they hadn’t drugged me, I may have exacerbated my injury.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it was the only way to get you here in one piece,” Bullock mutters, adding, “Mr. Mayor.”

Oswald sniffs, looking down and gently palming the edges of his bandaged wound. He’s about to tell them to leave when Jim shuffles deeper into the room.

“Harv, gimme a minute with him.”

“What? We agreed you were gonna let me rough him up some before you came in all White Knight to save the day.”

“I am injured!” Oswald squawks, hardly dignified, not that he cares.

“Only where Nygma stabbed you,” Bullock sings, backing off when Jim claps a hand on his shoulder. “All right, I’m going, I’m going. Hey, let’s get burgers after this. I’m starving.”

“Sure, close the door behind you.”

“Your partner is a barbarian.”

“He gets the job done. Sure as hell never stabbed me.” He raises his eyebrows and pulls up a chair. “That what happened, Oswald? Nygma snap and cut you open?”

“For the last time, Jim—”

“Hey.”

Oswald pauses, tripped up by the warmer tone in Jim’s voice. He looks up at him, confused. 

“Tell me what happened.”

Swallowing, Oswald murmurs, “I…nothing—I don’t remember.”

“Nothing happened? Or you don’t remember?”

“Clearly something _happened_. I know Ed was there because you arrested him, but he…”

His gaze skitters off, but Jim follows him.

“Look at me, Oswald.”

He’s supposed to lie. He needs to lie. It’s not as if he doesn’t want to, but Jim knows the truth already. Like when his mother asked about the things Maroni said about him and Oswald couldn’t tell her, all Jim wants is for Oswald to admit it. 

But Jim doesn’t care. Why would he, now, all of a sudden? 

“What does it matter to you anyway if he did do it?”

Oswald winces as he flounders to sit up. Jim lets him struggle for a moment and then presses a button that makes the upper part of the bed lift up with a low mechanical whir.

“I want him in prison,” Jim says. “He framed me, he killed cops, he killed his girlfriend. He hurt you, Oswald. I know he did. I can see it. And I don’t know what it has to do with you or what happened today, but there’s a Jane Doe in the morgue that looks an awful lot like Kris Kringle. Right down to the glasses. I’d bet money Ed had something to do with it.”

“You’re not the type to gamble with money, Jim.”

“Guess I have that in common with you then.”

That’s—

“This is cruel of you,” Oswald says in a whisper. “You come here when I’m—hurt and confused, and you want me to implicate my Chief of Staff just to fill your agenda.”

“I have an agenda,” Jim says. “Yeah, I do. I won’t deny it. But don’t pretend that cruelty isn’t the thing you and every other lunatic in this city likes most about me. I know.” He stands, agitated again. “Look, if you don’t want to tell me the truth, then I can’t make you.”

“And Ed?”

Jim looks at the ceiling and shakes his head, the line of his jaw tightening beneath skin.

“He’ll walk.”

“If you can arrange for him to be released tonight, I’d be most grateful.”

Staring at him, Jim walks back toward Oswald’s bed.

“You want this. He did this to you, and you’re gonna let him come back.”

“I don’t see why it should trouble you whose company I decide to keep.”

“It doesn’t.” The expression on his face flickers. He narrows his eyes and comes just a few steps closer so that he towers over the tiny hunched figure Oswald makes. “I had a dream about you.”

Oswald blinks.

“Jervis Tetch dosed me with something, nearly killed me. While I was under, I had a dream about you.”

“Oh.”

“You told me to never abandon my unit.”

Quickly thinking back on the many alliances Oswald has backed out of, he finds the sentiment about as perplexing as Jim probably did. He doesn’t know what to say. It’s such a strange thing to be told; such an incredibly vulnerable thing to say out loud. For the life of him, he doesn’t know how to respond.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, Oswald. I don’t think you know. Whatever it is…” Jim hesitates. “You’re the lesser of two evils.”

“That must feel very backward on your tongue.”

“You have been before,” Jim corrects him with a lazy shake of his head. “You usually are. Galavan, Maroni, Fish, and now Ed…If you weren’t a murderer and a psychopath, you’d probably be a nice guy.”

“How gracious of you to say, Jim,” Oswald deadpans. “If you recall, _Galavan_ was nice. Maroni and Fish, they had their moments, but even when they were terrible, they still knew how to play people. Just like you. I don’t have to be nice or good or decent. I rose up from nothing and everyone knows who I am.”

“And your boyfriend nearly killed you today just like he killed his last girlfriend. And probably the woman who looks just like her.”

Oswald sputters. “Ed is _not_ my—that is, not for a lack of…and he is technically my political partner, so—”

“Whatever. Your official story is that you don’t know who did this to you?”

“That’s right.”

“And the suspect we have in custody, you would like for us to release him.”

“I would hardly press charges against someone that, to my knowledge, did nothing wrong.”

Jim watches him, a fantastically disappointed look on his face that churns guilt low in Oswald’s gut. Oswald presses his lips together and looks away, quite finished with this bizarre parody of an intimate conversation they’ve been engaged in. He feels too exposed as he is, partially undressed with various scars clearly displayed on his pale skin.

Sighing, Jim rubs his hands down his face and breathes, “Okay.”

“It was good to see you, Jim,” Oswald hastens to add before Jim reaches the door.

He looks at Oswald over his shoulder, shakes his head slowly, and leaves without another word. Gabe returns a moment later with a cup of water for Oswald, and they sit together for a few hours more until Gabe is instructed to leave. Oswald alternates between frowning at the tv and frowning at the ceiling once it’s switched off. Ed must have been released by now. Oswald won’t know until morning, and even then, Ed might not come to visit him.

It’s an option Oswald hasn’t dared to consider. Ed will come.

But Ed doesn’t come.

He doesn’t come on the first morning, he doesn’t come that night, and he doesn’t come the following day. Oswald tries to keep his mind occupied. People send balloons and cards and stuffed bears, but none of those items are allowed entry into the hospital, so Gabe ends up shuttling the waves of presents back to the mansion while Oswald flips through health magazines, bored out of his mind. Sometimes Dr. Abrams comes in to talk with him, but her schedule, he gathers, is fairly hectic and they never have much time.

In their short stolen exchanges, he does gather that Abrams was close with someone Galavan murdered—some priest or other at a church on the outskirts of the city. Oswald doesn’t know how she knows that he stopped Galavan, but she definitely knows. And rather than fearing him for the violence of the crime, she respects him for it.

The nurses are quite friendly to him as well. Some of them treat him like a celebrity, which he finds amusing. One of them, Alton, calls Oswald ‘The Wizard,’ and while he was determined to hate the name and the boy, they both grow on him in the span of about eight hours, he’s embarrassed to say.

Oh, hospital life is a drag top to bottom, but the people are lovely to him. It’s more than Oswald could have hoped for. Of course, Gabe does take care to remind him that he could’ve just _not gotten stabbed_ to begin with. It’s not a bad argument, but the past is the past. Oswald accepted that this was going to happen to him from the moment Ed stormed up to him knife in hand, the logical parts of his brain all obliterated by rage.

He knew before Ed did. He knew _well before_ , and he could have tried to run, yes, but he wouldn’t have made it far enough to bypass the episode. He knew that, too.

Oswald doesn’t blame Jim for his frustration. Gabe has been fairly short with him for the same reason.

Frustration.

By the end of the third day, Oswald is pleading with Alton to be released, but Alton is immovable.

“Sorry, man, it ain’t happening. Abrams said maybe tomorrow if you don’t tear your stitches before then.”

“Alton, _please_ , what do you need? Do you need money? I’ll pay off your loans from medical school. You have those, right? I know you do.”

“Come on, Wiz, don’t compromise my integrity. I thought we were friends.”

“We—oh, for the love of…”

“Am I interrupting?”

Oswald snaps his head up at the sound of that voice. His heartbeat skips and thuds erratically at the vulpine cut of a man standing in the opened doorway.

“Ed?”

“Sir, visiting hours are almost over.”

“I know, I timed it. I have ten minutes.” Ed doesn’t move from his spot in the doorway. “May I collect?”

“Uh.” Alton glances from him to Oswald. A soft twitch of recognition shifts over his handsome young face. “Oh. _Oh,_ Wiz! I see you. All right, sir, you got it. Don’t take too long, though, okay?”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Alton clears out and closes the door behind him, cheerfully oblivious to Oswald’s pinked cheeks and Ed’s willful apathy to playful teasing. Gabe left an hour ago, incorrectly assuming, as Oswald had, that he would be going home tonight. Ed approaches the bed and stands to the right of the chair by his heart rate monitor. He doesn’t sit, but he doesn’t fidget either.

“I was going to bring flowers.”

“They’re banned in this hospital.”

“So I was told.”

Silence roars up between them like an invisible wall. Oswald looks down at his hands. Ed clears his throat. They both attempt to begin at the same time.

“Ed…”

“Oswald—”

They both stop and look at each other, gazes darting away after a few charged moments of staring.

“I just…”

“I thought you—oh, dear,” Ed mumbles, fiddling briefly with his glasses. “Oswald, I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

“You were detained,” Oswald replies faintly without trying to meet his eyes.

“They released me on the first day. I had no excuse.” He falters. “I was avoiding you. It was cowardly of me, and I apologize. Also, there are…other things, obviously, that I did that day. Things that you have every right to be upset about.”

“I forgave you the moment it happened, Ed. When you didn’t know yet that you’d done it.”

Ed flinches, a complicated series of twitches breaking out all over his face. He takes another step toward the bed, pulling up short and watching Oswald’s face for a reaction.

Oswald looks from Ed to the chair and says, “Sit if you like.”

Deflating, Ed rushes in and sits. He passes up the chair in favor of sitting on the edge of Oswald’s bed. It’s so familiar that he feels a rush of something fast and unruly like vertigo. Because he still looks poised to deliberate on the subject of Oswald’s most recent stab wound, Oswald shakes his head for him to stop.

“Ed, I killed Isabella. I killed her.”

He purses his lips, conflicted, wounded, and looks down. “Well, I stabbed you.”

“Yes,” Oswald allows, taking his time to draw out the word. He chuckles. “I should’ve just told you when I knew.”

“When you knew what?”

Oswald tilts his head, raises his eyebrows. Ed’s lips part and he blinks.

“Oh, right.” He barrels on in his same clipped tone, though Oswald would swear that his face has a touch of red to it now. “When would you have told me?”

“Somewhere in between chamomile tea with honey and your promise that you would do anything for me.” Oswald laughs again, shy to be saying it out loud. “I wanted to tell you over dinner, the night you met her.”

Ed closes his eyes, tips his head back. Oswald knows the feeling.

“Ed, I’m sorry.” If for nothing else, then for being too weak-willed to tell the man he loves how he felt. Oswald is sorry about that. He’s been sorry about that every day since he realized it’s what he wanted. “I’m sorry.”

They’re quiet for a long time. The clock on the wall ticks and ticks and ticks, and Oswald hasn’t been keeping track of the minutes they’ve spent here together, talking. Ed shifts on the bed, placing his hand near Oswald’s on the bed for support. It stays there, the heel of his hand less than an inch away from Oswald’s wrist.

“I’m born in the eyes,” he murmurs, awakening Oswald’s memory of the first time Ed attempted to tell him this riddle. “But most listen for me in words. When spoken, I exist in one breath that spans a lifetime. Men live in shackles seeking me, never knowing that they contain me. What am I?”

Oswald gulps down his fear and moves his hand so that his pinky brushes skin. Ed doesn’t move. He doesn’t look away. For a long moment, he can’t think of what the answer could possibly be. But then Ed’s pinky brushes his skin, too, and it hits him.

“Forgiveness,” he says.

A flicker of a smile flashes over Ed’s lips, still sad but…a tangible beginning to something else, to something _more_.

There’s a courtesy knock on the door, and then it swings open. Alton pokes his head in.

“Hey, sorry, man. I bought you a few extra minutes, but it’s closin’ time, you know? Come back tomorrow. He’ll be here.”

Ed stands, flashing a real smile this time. 

“I’ll see you in the morning, Oswald.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Ed.”

“Goodnight.”

Alton waits for Ed to leave and then shoots Oswald a sly smile before closing the door again. Oswald rolls his eyes at the ceiling, but he smiles, too. He can’t help but smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Man, I needed this. I love nygmobblepot.
> 
> When will I update other things? I don't know. No one knows! It's a conspiracy!
> 
> *throws smoke bomb, disappears*


End file.
